When life hands you lemons, make lemon meringue pie!

When you are discontent, you always want more,
more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice
contentment, you can say to yourself, ‘Oh yes, I already have everything that I
really need.

--The Dalai Lama

As I wrote about last time, I’ve lost my job due to the
messy state of my divorce.I have been
told repeatedly by friends how amazed they are at how I’ve turned a bad
situation around into a great adventure, which I suppose is true.But it is most of all the result of logic,
open-mindedness and contentment.

With unemployment, and thus no income, looming, I was trying
to figure out how I could best afford to live until the trial at the end of the
year.With extremely limited credit (and
anyway, I hate getting more into debt than absolutely necessary), virtually no
savings, and only a few paychecks to go, I needed to do something cheaper than
live how and where I am living now.Whether
I am content with what I have or not, the fact remains that what I have is what
I have.Wishing I had more money or
other resources isn’t going to help me get through this challenge.Contentment with my situation is really the
only way, when I look back in a few months, that I will be happy with what
happened and where I will be then.

My family thought I should get a temp job, but it would probably
end the same way as my current job, IF I could even get one in the first
place.In the meantime, while looking, I
would still be faced with the same financial situation I’m in now, with the
costs of living eating into my savings.

So I started thinking outside the box.If it is too expensive to live here, where
could I go and what could I do that would be cheaper? I had enough budgeted to
last me several months of fixed expenses during unemployment, but only if I had
no rent and very limited daily living expenses (food, transportation, etc).

And, as long as I could not stay here, where would I even
want to go?Since I have to drop
everything, what would I want to do instead?If I already have everything I need, how could I best apply these
resources?

So I made a list of places I’d like to go, both domestic and
international. (I’m a big fan of lists – I have a whole stack of them on my
desk, and quite a few on my computer too).Then I checked up on some basic living expense comparisons for each
place, and airfare or car expense to get there.This cut out quite a few choices, including practically everything in
the U.S. and Europe.A few options, such
as hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, were not feasible because I needed to be
able to stay connected at least weekly in case my lawyer needed to reach me. It would have been great to just start my
Centauride, but I am nowhere near to being ready for that with such short
notice.

I had to act fast, so a week after I found out I’d lose my
job within the month, and with my list of places narrowed down to a few
countries, I delved into my research for opportunities and costs for each
location.Visa requirements for each,
travel shots required and appointment made, several travel guides read through,
discussions with numerous experienced travelers, and even more information,
gathered and sifted through.I looked at
USAid, teaching English, and several other programs, and settled upon WWOOF
(WorldWide Opportunities in Organic Farming, also called Willing Workers On
Organic Farms), which provides room and board at farms in exchange for part
time assistance with farm work.

A week later, I had my decision: India! In the approximately 12 weeks I will be there,
I plan on visiting the foothills of the Himalayas in the North, the deserts
(and camels!) of Rajasthan in the west, the jungles of the East, and the
beaches and tropical farms of the South.I still have to contact each farm and make arrangements, but I am hoping
to work on a tea plantation, a Buddhist nunnery, a World Heritage ashram, a
camel safari, an elephant stable, a water buffalo dairy, and also farms that
grow cocoa, coffee, rubber, and other things that I have never seen grown
before.Plus do some sightseeing, of
course!

It is a great exercise in contentment.I could have spent my last two weeks angry,
depressed, and upset about the loss of my job and the lack of progress in my
divorce, but instead I accepted that I am where I need to be, and looked ahead
to where I want to go.If I couldn’t work
or live here, I might as well do something worthwhile that I could not do when
employed. If I had to find a way to live
even more cheaply than I already have been, I could find a solution that would
be enjoyable too, and not just tighten my belt and hope for the best.I have lists of things I want to do and
learn, and with many months of unemployment ahead of me, I will have all sorts
of time to achieve some of them.

That’s not to say that the situation is not upsetting. It
is.When I think of the reason I am
going to travel, I get queasy and a little angry. But I think this is a great
solution to a terrible problem.As hard
is it can be to feel content with a job loss and financial difficulties, it is
possible to see what opportunities also exist in that moment – and then grab
them with both hands! When life hands you lemons, don't just settle for lemonade... make yourself a whole dang lemon meringue pie!

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